The Challenges and Rewards of a New Assessment Leader

1. The Challenges and Rewards of a New Assessment Leader J. Gabe Estill Director, Academic Assessment Moraine Valley Community College David Deitemyer Dean, Academic Initiatives and Accountability Moraine Valley Community College http://www.morainevalley.edu/studentassessment

2. Introduction • About Moraine Valley Community College • About our positions • Our history of academic assessment • College Assessment Plan

3. Strategies • Philosophical Approaches • Operational Strategies

4. Philosophical Approaches

5. Faculty Evaluation vs. Student Assessment • Do not intervene in classroom and instructor-issued student grades • Build a firewall between indicators of student achievement and faculty performance evaluations

6. Emphasize Student Learning • Focus on assessment’s benefits for student learning • Faculty might become more receptive to assessment if the emphasis is placed on student learning.

7. Classroom vs. Course and Program Assessment • Convey the differences • Moraine Valley’s chart

8. Clear Assessment Vocabulary • Agree to college-wide definitions and usage for words that often cause confusion: • assessment, evaluation, standardized versus shared, and learning outcomes.

9. Learn the Curriculum • Benefits • College Catalog

10. Publicize the Assessment Office • Establish a web presence • Reach out to all faculty • Participate in professional development activities • Network with other assessment personnel

11. Operational Strategies

12. Starting the Conversation • Offer to meet with individual department chairs • Ask them about current practices • Stress that they’re already performing assessment even if it isn’t formalized and even if they don’t want to use the term.

13. Begin with the End in Mind • Student Assessment (by itself) is not a goal or solution. It may be one worthwhile tool to solve a persistent problem. • Work with faculty around a common course or problem and ask them to describe the desired goal or end state. • First, solve the problem conceptually and then use assessment to achieve the solution.

14. Target Student Learning Outcomes • Make student learning outcomes the primary target of assessment work • Use learning outcomes as the meeting point for discussions about course content, expectations for students, instructional practices, role of the textbook, assessment practices

15. Create Tools for Easy Use • Templates • Samples • Post online resources

16. Documenting and Reporting • Establish documentation and reporting vehicles and schedules early – even before there is anything big to report. • Effective documenting and reporting is an important part of the student assessment “game”: selling to administration and faculty.

17. Establish Long-Term Practices • If an assessment practice is worth doing once, it is worth doing five times. • Only with repetition will an assessment initiative become a habit among instructors and move to the status of can’t-do-without.

18. Our Handouts • Moraine Valley’s College Assessment Plan • Assessment of Student Academic Achievement Brochure • Comprehensive List of Strategies

19. Questions

20. Contact • J. Gabe Estill, Director of Academic Assessment • estillj@morainevalley.edu • David Deitemyer, Dean of Academic Initiatives and Accountability • deitemyer@morainevalley.edu